1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a gate driver and a driving method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to a gate driver and a driving method thereof for use in a liquid crystal display.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, technology has continued to develop significantly and different types of electronic products available change day by day. Among the various electronic products, liquid crystal displays have many advantages such as thin volume, low power consumption, and compatible with current semiconductor fabrication process. So liquid crystal displays have gradually become the mainstream among various candidates of flat panel displays. In addition, because the cost of the driving integrated circuit for use in the liquid crystal display is high, using fewer driving integrated circuits without affecting the performance of the liquid crystal display can reduce the manufacturing cost.
In a conventional liquid crystal display, each data line or gate line has to couple to different driving integrated circuits, so that the data can be inputted, or each pixel can be informed while inputting the data. By using the approach, many driving integrated circuits have to be used while inputting the data into the pixel regions, and the production cost is therefore very high.
FIG. 1A is a clock diagram of the driving signal in the prior art. FIG. 1B is a diagram showing the pixel regions formed with the gate lines and the data lines in the prior art. For example, the driving signals outputted from the gate driving integrated circuits are designed as shown in FIG. 1A and used for the pixel regions as shown in FIG. 1B. Taking the driving signal which is transmitted by the scan line Gn for example, the driving signal during the time period T3 is at a high level and the transistor M1 and M2 are turned on, so the data signal carried by the data line Dn is transmitted to the pixel 100 through the transistor M1 for charging. The driving signal during the time period T4 is at a low level, so the transistor M1 and M2 are turned off. Then, the driving signal during the time period T5 is at a high level and the transistor M1 and M2 are turned on again, and the driving signal of the scan line Gn+1 is also at a high level, so the transistor M3 is turned on as well. At this moment, the data signal carried by the data line Dn is transmitted to the pixel 110 through the transistor M3 and then transmitted to the pixel 120 through the transistor M2 to complete charging. The driving signal of the scan line Gn is at a high level again during the time period T6 so that the transistor M1 is turned on again, and the data signal is thus transmitted to the pixel 100 through the transistor M1 for charging again and replacing the data of the pixel 100 during the time period T3. Therefore, the data driving integrated circuits required to connect the data lines can be saved, and the display can be functioned as usual. However, this kind of skill can only be used to save the data driving integrated circuits, but does not solve the problem of using many gate driving integrated circuits.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need to provide a gate driver that is able to save the usage of the gate driving integrated circuits and reduce the production cost.